Sony’s Shawn Layden: We’ve “Learned So Much” From the 2011 PSN Hack

May 31, 2017
Written by Jason Dunning

Shawn Layden, who became the President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America in 2014 after Jack Tretton stepped down, discussed the 2011 PlayStation Network hack with Polygon in a recent interview.

The Chief Operating Officer of Sony Network Entertainment International at the time, Layden said the PSN hack took years off of his life, but he’s also glad it happened at that time because they learned so much from it:

It took years off my life. I remember the day.

If it had to happen to us, I’m glad it happened then. We’ve learned so much from that experience.

We were in as good a position as we could be at the time with what was, at the time, state of the art. But we did get hit and we have taken our capabilities in that area to the highest degree possible. So no one is complacent or, or ignorant about the dangers and the challenges that are out there but I think we are in a much better place today.

We have had our baptism by fire.

This interview took place in New York recently where, as Polygon describes it, “Layden met with press to discuss the facts and figures Sony hopes will never bog down a public conference keynote again.” The embargo on those facts and figures will lift in early June, likely ahead of Sony’s E3 2017 press conference on Monday, June 12.

You can learn more about Layden’s history with Sony, which began in 1987, by following the link below.